@democratic:
I don’t think Canada should make the list. I would like to see all VCs (other than capitals) an area of fighting that both teams can achieve.
In Pacific they all are. San Franscio is like a capital, and so is Tokyo. All other are areas of fighting that are either a challenge for a team to both hold or capture.
It would be rigged to win if Germany would be expected to capture Canada when the allies only need France or something. We need most of the VCs to be on the Russian front (Germany will be able to reach anything there), North Africa (that will be a great UK/Italy battle) or France.
That means there will be lots of fighting and a quicker game, rather than waiting for Germany to capture Canada
PS-I am sure LH said Cairo will be one, either here or on HGD.
I don’t disagree with you, I think the Axis should be able to win without taking a capital in order to make VCs actually worth putting them in the game. Right now most of us play until one side capitulates, which is usually after one country has been completely taken over. In 1940, we have smaller powers like ANZAC that if the Axis takes them over should not matter enough to cause the Allies to surrender, but the goal of the Axis all along was to capture enough key territories to become entrenched and then to sue for peace; NOT world domination or knocking out the Allied powers. Sea Lion was a plan, but it was never undertaken because Germany knew it was too risky, and Moscow was the only capital they made a real effort to try to take. In order for VCs to be useful to the game, there needs to be enough of them in strategic and (like you say) accessible locations for the Axis to be able to take the winning number probably without taking Moscow.
I like that they seem to be moving in this direction at least as far as Pacific 1940 is an indicator since Japan starts with only 2 VCs and wins by gaining 4 more (which, admittedly, does mean Japan has to capture at least 1 capital), while the Allies have to take Tokyo.
I included Ottawa/Quebec because historically in AA50 we had a VC there and there will now be an IC there as well, besides that Canada was the oldest member of the UK Commonwealth, so if SA, India, and Egypt have VCs (with Sydney for ANZAC too), I’m sure Canada will continue to have one. It is not a truly viable VC to be captured, so I think the Canada VC should not be a necessity for Axis victory since it was never really in the historic Axis plan for victory (or a real concern to the Allies that the Axis would invade Canada), though it does stand to reason if the Axis goes for a non-historical playout (with Japan going KAF through Alaska or the US going all-out Pacific and letting Italy pop through the Atlantic to Canada) and they do manage to take it, it is strategic enough that it should count toward the Axis winning the game.
If we consider that Japan needs to have a total of 6 VCs (plus the assumed 3 VCs the European Axis will start with: Berlin, Rome, and Warsaw), and continue from there for Europe, I think the VCs that the Axis need to win (without taking a capital) should include:
Locations they need to capture like Paris (of course), Cairo, Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Port Town/Johannesburg - all of which (besides Cairo) are locations of ICs anyway, so are very strategic in and of themselves. Adding these to the 3 we can assume the European Axis start with take us to 8 VCs for Axis victory in the Europe game out of 11 total (assuming those I listed above.
Another strategic location that the Axis needs to defend like Oslo (Norway), Helsinki (Finland), Amsterdam (Netherlands since the Dutch act like a fallen Allied power in the Pacific), or Copenhagen in Europe and somewhere like Tripoli (Libya), Algiers (Algeria), Rabat (Morocco), or Jerusalem (Palestine) in North Africa. These are locations the Axis may already have at the start of the game or at least will be very close to taking. This would mean that the Axis would have to have 9 or 10 VCs to win out of 12 or 13 VCs in the Europe game without having to capture the places like Moscow, London, Washington, or Ottawa/Quebec.
All this would mean that the Axis will need 14-16 out of 19-21 VCs total in Global, assuming LH and Co. decide to go this route of letting the Axis win without taking a single capital or needing to touch North America. They haven’t done this in Spring '42 or in AA50, they have set the minimum VCs high enough that a reasonable Axis win still includes Moscow, so that was the reasoning behind my previous post. We can be hopeful :-), but I’m not exactly expectant. :|
We shall see.
